Clinical Pathological Characteristics and Prognosis of Multigene Co-Mutations in Elderly Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Retrospective Analysis

BACKGROUND: With the development and wide application of next-generation sequencing (NGS), multiple-gene mutations related to lung cancer are detected using this technology. Notably, even multigene concomitant mutations (co-mutations), which occur at a relatively low incidence, can be detected more effectively using NGS. It is well-known that the percentages of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the elderly lung cancer population are also gradually increasing, while its prognosis is hard and the quality of long-term survival is poor. This study aimed at investigating the common clinicopathologic features of multigene co-mutations for better evaluating the prognosis of elderly NSCLC patients. METHODS: A total of 464 NSCLC patients were divided into 3 groups according to the types of gene mutation, whose clinical data were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: In total, 38.36% (178/464) of NSCLC patients were in the nonmutation group, 50% in the single-gene mutation group, and 11.64% in the multigene co-mutation group. Nonmutation, single-gene mutation, and co-mutation groups were all prone to occur in male adenocarcinoma patients (P < .05). EGFR gene mutation rates were the highest in the single-gene mutation and co-mutation groups (54.31% and 24.35%). In the co-mutation group, the incidence of EGFR/PIK3CA, LK/KRAS, and EGFR/MET co-mutations was the highest (16.67%, 11.11%, and 7.41%). ALK/HER2/MET, EGFR/HER2/MET, and EGFR/HER2/MET/ROS1 multiple-gene co-mutations were, respectively, found in 1 case, and the multigene co-mutation patients commonly had a worse median progression-free survival (PFS) than that of single-gene mutation (7.13 vs 12.34 months, P = .013). CONCLUSION: With the application of NGS, the detectable rates of gene co-mutation are increasingly high in elderly patients with NSCLC, which mainly occurs in male adenocarcinoma patients commonly with poor PFS. It will be critically necessary to conduct multigene detections by NGS for directing targeted therapy of elderly NSCLC patients.